daftandbarmy
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Robin Evelegh is the the 3RGJ CO who invented the patrolling methods used by the UK so successfully in NI starting in the early 70s.
Up to that point the casualty rate was huge. The 'Brick' and'Multiple Patrol' were the cornerstones of routine framework patrolling operations that attrited the enemy, brought confidence to the population and allowed us to reintroduce the police to the situation safely, while forcing the IRA underground into patterns that could be identified and defeated by covert agencies.
It became such a well established approach that the UK reorganized the whole infantry around the 4 man team (commander, light MG, grenadier, rfmn) orbat in the early 80s with the introduction of the SA80 family of weapons. An amazing and successful example of a wide spread doctrinal shift in a whole army resulting from an innovation developed from the immediate front line needs of one battalion, and one visionary leader - Robin.
His son was in my platoon at Sandhurst. I asked him if his Dad could send me any info on the origins of the Multiple Patrol. Here's his response:
There's a book in here somewhere
1. I am Ted's "aged parent". I am very happy to help you with what I remember that is relevant.
2. In December 1971 I was appointed to command 3rd Battalion Royal Green Jackets, which at that point did not exist having been reduced to an independent company the Summer before.
3. I actually started with 4 of us in a portakabin at Shoeburyness wondering how best to "raise a regiment"! Approximately 800 people were posted in and we embarked for the Upper Falls area of Belfast in August 1972. Half of the bn had arrived within 2 months of us moving.
4. We arrived in the Upper Falls just after Operation Motorman when the British Government re-established its writ in the areas of Belfast and Londonderry that had since "Bloody Sunday" been declared as "No go areas" to British troops.
5. The bn that we relieved in the Upper Falls in their four months tour had endured 12 killed and 48 wounded.
6. In the early two or three weeks of our tour we had two killed and a number wounded. These casualties were almost all due to the established Army pattern of carrying out what the IRA called "Duck Patrols" because shooting the last man in each patrol was like shooting ducks.
7. In Londonderry the Scots Guards had such a problem with last men being killed in patrols that they instituted a policy of their officers acting as the last man in patrols to show that the officers were not afraid to run the same risks as their men.
8. Being of a nervous disposition and having a high regard for the integrity of my own little pink skin, I decided to make a mental effort to improve our patrolling technique so that these losses stopped. I am by the way talking about daylight patrols; there never was a problem in those days before night vision equipment with night time patrols, but nights are short in Summer.
9. My first attempt was to use much larger patrols as opposed to the customary single section patrols. I tried platoon patrols, but no advantage derived from these because the IRA snipers could see them approaching, work out their route and objective, and then shoot at the perimeter of these large patrols. We soon had two or three men hit this way.
10. The practice of the IRA was for a sniper to take up a position at an upstairs window of a terrace house in the middle of a row of adjoined houses. They would take up their position when they saw a foot patrol moving fairly slowly or doing its job of checking peoples' identity or other locational tasks. They would then fire their shots at the patrol in the street to their front, promptly run downstairs and out the backdoor where an accomplice, usually a woman, would be waiting with a baby in a pram. She would take the sniper's gun and put it in the pram or in some other hiding place. Thus by the time the patrol had got round the end of the terrace and into the street at the back of the sniper's position, there was nothing to be seen but a lot of civilians walking about. It was also extremely difficult to tell where a shot had come from as the noise echoed around the buildings in the street where the soldier had been hit.
11. So I racked my brains and remembered General Eisenhower's aphorism when asked to a duck shoot that, "This would be lot less fun if the ducks could shoot back." What I assessed would really throw the snipers off their confidence and balance would be if they did not know precisely or predictably where troops were, so that when they ran out of the back door, they might be running into the arms of a somewhat peeved bunch of Bristish soldiers.
12. I therefore ordered that all day light foot patrols should be accompanied by a second patrol, perhaps only of say 4 soldiers, in a Humber wheeled Armoured Personnel Carrier [APC} called a "Pig" or a "Saracen" APC. The patrol in the Pig was forbidden to have any task except to drive around in a confusing manner up and down and around streets in the proximity of the foot patrol, which to do its job might well have to spend say half an hour in the same street. This did the trick. We never lost another soldier on foot patrol and were hardly ever sniped at and then ineffectually, because of the sniper's need to postion himself where he could be reasonably confident of not meeting the Pig as he made his escape.
11. I was interested to learn from Ted, that this practice had become standard by the time he was in Ulster.
12. The other tactical technique I introduced got called the"The Come Dancing Method" by the troops. The logic of this was that however good a shot a sniper may be, it is extremely difficult to hit a target moving even slightly. Thus the head of someone sitting still and reading is easy to hit, but the head of someone talking to a group and therefore moving his head is almost impossible to hit with a single shot. The trouble was that all our basic infantry training was rightly angled to limited war in Europe and therefore troops were trained when threatened to hunker down behind cover. But on the streets of the Upper Falls the enemy could fire from any direction, so hunkering down behind a bollard or something gave the illusion of protection but the reality of offering the sniper a round still target. We therefore trained our troops to move about even one foot each way and back all the time when on the streets or talking to people, or knoacking on doors, or observing, or talking on the radio. The local populace may have thought that the entire 3 RGJ suffered from the disease St. Vitus dance which leads to constant movement. But, whether they did or not, this technique kept our men all in one piece. The "Come Dancing Technique" is very clearly illustrated at the beginning of the BBC TV Documentary [which got a best TV documantary of the year award in 1973]. If you want a copy of this film, I could send a rather inferior copy to you. However you might be able to get it from the BBC direct as I see they used clips from it in another BBC programme last Summer. I am told that our forces in Basra may have been interested in this technique.
13. The upshot of the above was that on our first 4 months tour in the Upper Falls we had 3 killed and 26 wounded, whereas on our second tour exactly a year later in the same Upper Falls we had no casualties at all; we had learned a thing or two.
14.In 1978 I published abook called, "Peacekeeping in a Democratic Society; the Lessons of Northern Ireland". Its ISBN number is 0-905838-10-6. It was basically about the improvements in the law needed in Northern Ireland to make the Army and Police effective, but also properly controlled and disciplined within that law. It caused a "right furore" at the time and led to numerous radio and TV appearances as well as written articles which went on at a decreasing rate until the my last appearance was in 2004, although I still get phoned about it by the media from time to time. If you want this book and cannot get it from your local library, I will be happy to post you a copy.
Hope this helps. Please feel free to revert.
Up to that point the casualty rate was huge. The 'Brick' and'Multiple Patrol' were the cornerstones of routine framework patrolling operations that attrited the enemy, brought confidence to the population and allowed us to reintroduce the police to the situation safely, while forcing the IRA underground into patterns that could be identified and defeated by covert agencies.
It became such a well established approach that the UK reorganized the whole infantry around the 4 man team (commander, light MG, grenadier, rfmn) orbat in the early 80s with the introduction of the SA80 family of weapons. An amazing and successful example of a wide spread doctrinal shift in a whole army resulting from an innovation developed from the immediate front line needs of one battalion, and one visionary leader - Robin.
His son was in my platoon at Sandhurst. I asked him if his Dad could send me any info on the origins of the Multiple Patrol. Here's his response:
There's a book in here somewhere
1. I am Ted's "aged parent". I am very happy to help you with what I remember that is relevant.
2. In December 1971 I was appointed to command 3rd Battalion Royal Green Jackets, which at that point did not exist having been reduced to an independent company the Summer before.
3. I actually started with 4 of us in a portakabin at Shoeburyness wondering how best to "raise a regiment"! Approximately 800 people were posted in and we embarked for the Upper Falls area of Belfast in August 1972. Half of the bn had arrived within 2 months of us moving.
4. We arrived in the Upper Falls just after Operation Motorman when the British Government re-established its writ in the areas of Belfast and Londonderry that had since "Bloody Sunday" been declared as "No go areas" to British troops.
5. The bn that we relieved in the Upper Falls in their four months tour had endured 12 killed and 48 wounded.
6. In the early two or three weeks of our tour we had two killed and a number wounded. These casualties were almost all due to the established Army pattern of carrying out what the IRA called "Duck Patrols" because shooting the last man in each patrol was like shooting ducks.
7. In Londonderry the Scots Guards had such a problem with last men being killed in patrols that they instituted a policy of their officers acting as the last man in patrols to show that the officers were not afraid to run the same risks as their men.
8. Being of a nervous disposition and having a high regard for the integrity of my own little pink skin, I decided to make a mental effort to improve our patrolling technique so that these losses stopped. I am by the way talking about daylight patrols; there never was a problem in those days before night vision equipment with night time patrols, but nights are short in Summer.
9. My first attempt was to use much larger patrols as opposed to the customary single section patrols. I tried platoon patrols, but no advantage derived from these because the IRA snipers could see them approaching, work out their route and objective, and then shoot at the perimeter of these large patrols. We soon had two or three men hit this way.
10. The practice of the IRA was for a sniper to take up a position at an upstairs window of a terrace house in the middle of a row of adjoined houses. They would take up their position when they saw a foot patrol moving fairly slowly or doing its job of checking peoples' identity or other locational tasks. They would then fire their shots at the patrol in the street to their front, promptly run downstairs and out the backdoor where an accomplice, usually a woman, would be waiting with a baby in a pram. She would take the sniper's gun and put it in the pram or in some other hiding place. Thus by the time the patrol had got round the end of the terrace and into the street at the back of the sniper's position, there was nothing to be seen but a lot of civilians walking about. It was also extremely difficult to tell where a shot had come from as the noise echoed around the buildings in the street where the soldier had been hit.
11. So I racked my brains and remembered General Eisenhower's aphorism when asked to a duck shoot that, "This would be lot less fun if the ducks could shoot back." What I assessed would really throw the snipers off their confidence and balance would be if they did not know precisely or predictably where troops were, so that when they ran out of the back door, they might be running into the arms of a somewhat peeved bunch of Bristish soldiers.
12. I therefore ordered that all day light foot patrols should be accompanied by a second patrol, perhaps only of say 4 soldiers, in a Humber wheeled Armoured Personnel Carrier [APC} called a "Pig" or a "Saracen" APC. The patrol in the Pig was forbidden to have any task except to drive around in a confusing manner up and down and around streets in the proximity of the foot patrol, which to do its job might well have to spend say half an hour in the same street. This did the trick. We never lost another soldier on foot patrol and were hardly ever sniped at and then ineffectually, because of the sniper's need to postion himself where he could be reasonably confident of not meeting the Pig as he made his escape.
11. I was interested to learn from Ted, that this practice had become standard by the time he was in Ulster.
12. The other tactical technique I introduced got called the"The Come Dancing Method" by the troops. The logic of this was that however good a shot a sniper may be, it is extremely difficult to hit a target moving even slightly. Thus the head of someone sitting still and reading is easy to hit, but the head of someone talking to a group and therefore moving his head is almost impossible to hit with a single shot. The trouble was that all our basic infantry training was rightly angled to limited war in Europe and therefore troops were trained when threatened to hunker down behind cover. But on the streets of the Upper Falls the enemy could fire from any direction, so hunkering down behind a bollard or something gave the illusion of protection but the reality of offering the sniper a round still target. We therefore trained our troops to move about even one foot each way and back all the time when on the streets or talking to people, or knoacking on doors, or observing, or talking on the radio. The local populace may have thought that the entire 3 RGJ suffered from the disease St. Vitus dance which leads to constant movement. But, whether they did or not, this technique kept our men all in one piece. The "Come Dancing Technique" is very clearly illustrated at the beginning of the BBC TV Documentary [which got a best TV documantary of the year award in 1973]. If you want a copy of this film, I could send a rather inferior copy to you. However you might be able to get it from the BBC direct as I see they used clips from it in another BBC programme last Summer. I am told that our forces in Basra may have been interested in this technique.
13. The upshot of the above was that on our first 4 months tour in the Upper Falls we had 3 killed and 26 wounded, whereas on our second tour exactly a year later in the same Upper Falls we had no casualties at all; we had learned a thing or two.
14.In 1978 I published abook called, "Peacekeeping in a Democratic Society; the Lessons of Northern Ireland". Its ISBN number is 0-905838-10-6. It was basically about the improvements in the law needed in Northern Ireland to make the Army and Police effective, but also properly controlled and disciplined within that law. It caused a "right furore" at the time and led to numerous radio and TV appearances as well as written articles which went on at a decreasing rate until the my last appearance was in 2004, although I still get phoned about it by the media from time to time. If you want this book and cannot get it from your local library, I will be happy to post you a copy.
Hope this helps. Please feel free to revert.
